What is this "text book" and where is it available?

Every now and then, we encounter the term "text book move" or "book move" in annotations, articles etc.

What is this "text book"? Is it just a general term for the set of opening moves well known?

I mean, i am aware of the fact that there are various opening books etc.(in different forms and formats whatsoever) but when one uses the term "text book", it should be specific and should define a standard "book".

What is this standard book and where can one get it?

(I am an amateur with Fide rating of 1766.)

thanks :)

Perhaps the most famous is MCO or Modern Chess Openings by Nick de Firmian, also known as "the chess players bible".

Hey, thanks for the answer. But where can we find these 'characteristics'? The chess opening books that we read generally cover lines upto few moves(may be 10-15 moves, including some, not all variations). But when we see some experts analysing higher rated games, they sometimes indicate even a 20th move as some "text book move".

If you are used to fritz 12, you will see that it shows arrows for moves in its opening book. And the depth of its opening book goes upto 20th move sometimes, penetrating into sharp lines, most of which overlap ditto with some master games which we often analyse.

Is fritz/rybka opening book the only source of learning these variations? Where do grandmasters learn these variations from? There got to be some standard source, dont you feel?

aldehyde,

It varies from opening to opening.  For example, click on "Learn" and then click
on "Game Explorer".

Now click the top move(e4) and the next top move(c5).  This is the Sicilian.
If you keep clicking the very top move, you will go 21 moves before you get
to three game continuations.  These are all "textbook moves".  You can do the
same with the Ruy Lopez on the "Game Explorer".


Then try some rarer openings.  You will see sometimes you run out of "textbook moves" after only ten moves or so.

Good luck!

Things that are textbook could be common, yes. Like - Qc7, Be7, 0-0, Nf6, and Nd7 are "textbook" Caro-Kann. But "book" Caro-Kann, Capablanca Variation, is: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nd7 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3 Nf6.

Well, somebody has to come up with new variations. GMs prepare new lines at home sometimes, with help from teams of other high-level players.

There are so-called typical positions that arise. It could be one where a minority attack is apparent and a pawn move there might be a typical move.

I remember one passage in Endgame by Lawson (about the Short-Kasparov match) where Spassky was suggesting a move as the way to go in "these kinds of positions" (read: typical positions). That move would be a "typical move".

To be a typical move, the position has to have some strong characteristic about it that arises not rarely and is not trivial.

For this reason I would not say that placing a rook behind a passed pawn would be "typical". In that situation it is more like a common stratagem being applied, but not a typical move.

I could look into it more but I hope what I've offered sheds some light.

Hey friends.

I have an example here.

This position is arrived by the sequence of following 20 moves

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bg5 e6 7. Qd2 Be7 8.
O-O-O O-O 9. f4 Nxd4 10. Qxd4 Qa5 11. Bc4 Bd7 12. e5 dxe5 13. fxe5 Bc6 14. Bd2
Nd7 15. Nd5 Qd8 16. Nxe7+ Qxe7 17. Rhe1 Rfd8 18. Qg4 Nf8 19. Bd3 Rxd3 20. cxd3
Qd7 *

On searching the database, I found that this position arrived in master games(avg Elo above 2400) atleast in 150 games(actual number may be even more). Most of the games were played even before fritz opening book was available. The opening book of fritz/rybka also contains this sequence of moves. This cannot be a coincidence, nor do I believe that all those players might have prepared the same line themselves, or played the same moves in same order by instinct. I am sure IMs and GMs have thorough knowledge of such deep lines and positions. Where did they study these lines from? There got to be some source.

But the point is that, I have never come across any book written by any author in which these lines are explained upto the depth of 20 moves!!!!! or more.

And the so called experts may still call the 21st move as a "book move".

If such sequences are so common, why are they not explained in books(that are available to us) in so much depth and why is it that we(by 'we', i mean avg chess players) have never come across such positions before?

(Oh well, i have just taken the number '20' as an example. Actual depth may be even more in other cases of even sharper lines)

The definition of textbook is just "Being a characteristic example of its kind; classic"

 Good original question, and really good answer.  I really wasn't sure how to properly use the Game Explorer tool  t/y.